


somewhere in the distance, the x files theme music plays

by stardustmelodies



Series: biweekly prompt challenge [1]
Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: F/F, Honestly Kira makes a perfect Scully and Jadzia is a great Mulder, Human Kira, Paranormal Investigators AU, Secret Time Cop Jadzia Dax, Time Travel AU, still learning to use ao3 tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-19
Updated: 2019-07-19
Packaged: 2020-07-08 19:23:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19874788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardustmelodies/pseuds/stardustmelodies
Summary: Based on the prompt “paranormal investigators AU” for biweekly prompt challenge on the kiradax discord server.FBI agents Kira and Dax investigate the case of a delirious girl caught trying to steal a public bus in Washington D.C., who hospital employees are unable to treat when her life signs are unreadable by their medical equipment.





	somewhere in the distance, the x files theme music plays

“A what?”

“A dybbuk.” 

“Gesundheit.”

Jadzia rolls her eyes and gives her partner a pointed look as they step into the elevator. She checks the post-it she’d been handed with the girl’s room number, punches the button for the corresponding floor, and then crumples up the note and shoves it into the pocket of her black dress pants.

“A dybbuk. A sort of malicious spirit, popular in Jewish folklore. A homeless soul, known to possess those around it in order to complete its unfinished business. Comes from the Hebrew term  _ ‘to cling.’ _ ”

“Where do you dig this stuff up, Dax?”

“Wikipedia, mostly.”

Kira scoffs as the elevator dings and she steps out. “You’re telling me this girl has a dead person inside her with ‘ _ unfinished business,’  _ and  _ that’s  _ why she decided to go joyriding around Federal City in a stolen Metro 325?”

“Could be more than one person.”

Kira snorts a laugh.

“It’s possible,” says Dax. “She seemed pretty mixed up when local P.D. caught up with her. Kept giving them different names for herself.”

“It’s also a hell of a lot  _ more  _ possible she’s got some undiagnosed dissociative disorder.”

“You think she’s got multiple personalities?”

Kira runs her hands through her hair and let’s out a sigh of frustration as she begins looking around for room numbers above the hospital doors. “Could be. Though the existence of D.I.D. at  _ all _ is hotly contested. Docs ran bloodwork when she came in. We’ll see if she’s on any antipsychotics. Or could have just been a bad trip.”

They find a nurse, flash their federal I.D. badges, and ask about the location of the suspect. They’re led down one flight of steps to the last bed on the unit. 

“You know what I don’t understand,” Kira says as the sounds of their heels clicking on the tiled floor echo through the sterilized halls, “Why are you interested in this case, anyway? Other than your dubstep—”

“Dybbuk”

“—theory, nothing about the events of this incident point to anything…”

“Supernatural or extraterrestrial in origin?”

Kira chews the inside of her cheek but says nothing more. They’ve been working together for a couple years now, but she’s still getting used to her partner’s propensity for the preposterous. Strange cases, bizarre theories, a constant string of unresolved loose ends, and countless unsatisfyingly answerless reports sent back to the Bureau. They were on perpetual thin ice. Their department relegated to the darkest corner of the building at headquarters, and most of their superiors resigned to let the two officers sully their own reputations while wasting taxpayer money to chase tabloid reports of UFO sightings and all other things that go bump in the night. 

Or, in this case, a bus in the middle of the day that had been left running on the side of the road, keys in the ignition while the driver had gone to relieve himself in some unfortunate shrubbery. 

“There’s nothing unusual about this girl. Other than the fact she woke up in an unfamiliar city and her first instinct was to try and steal a car to go visit a friend in New Orleans.”

“What about the fact that when she was interviewed she had no idea what year it was or any knowledge of the form of currency the United States has been operating under since 1861?”

Kira shrugs. “Drug addict. Bad trip. I mean, you saw all those tattoos. These types are always inked up to their ears —  _ literally,  _ in her case. So she’s new in town, scored something last night on the street, but had a bad reaction to whatever it was laced with. Tale as old as time.”

“If we’re going strictly off precedent, I’ll remind you that ghost stories go back a pretty far way, too.”

Kira shoots Jadzia a sharp look but doesn’t have time to respond before a doctor in a long, white robe approaches them. 

“You must be Agents Dax and Kira.”

“That’s right,” says Jadzia.

Kira nods her chin towards the room behind him, “She in there?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Is she conscious?” 

“Not at the moment.”

“Can we speak with her?”

“Yes, ma’am, but, uh…”

“Yes? What is it?” asks Jadzia. 

“Well, I feel it’s only fair to warn you, we’re… having a lot of trouble with her.”

“She’s been uncooperative?” there’s an edge of annoyance in Agent Kira’s voice.

“No, no, she’s been perfectly reasonable. If not just a little… well,” the doctor shrugs, “ _ confused.  _ But when we attempted to hook her up to our equipment to be monitored, nothing worked properly. The readings made no sense. At first, we thought the machines in the room were malfunctioning. So we tried the next one over. And then the next.”

Jadzia nods, “And then the next and then the next.”

The doctor nods with closed lips.

Jadzia smirks and mumbles, mainly to herself, “That explains the scenic walk it took to get down here.”

Kira looks over at Jadzia and asks her, “I don’t suppose any of your ghost stories mention the victims being unreadable by modern medical equipment?”

“Excuse me?” the doctor blinks. Kira waves the comment away. 

After a brief, enigmatic pause, Jadzia looks through the glass to the girl who seems to be stirring where she lay in her bed. “Would either of you mind if I tried speaking with her first? Just now, alone, for a minute?”

The doctor shrugs again. “I don’t see why not.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Kira mutters under her breath.

Jadzia rests her hand briefly on her partner’s shoulder. “Don’t take it personally. She’s young, scared, been through a lot. And you can just be a little…”

“Abrasive.”

“At times.

Kira sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger. “Fine. Go. You do the interview. Ask her about the ectoplasm or ancient burial sites or whatever it is you do. I’ll start getting statements from the hospital staff.”

“Thanks, Nerys.”

They share a brief stare. Kira’s eyes linger, unreadable, on her partner before she nods and then turns to ask the doctor a few more questions.

Jadzia walks into the room and sees the patient slumped against her hospital gurnee, wearing a paper dress, petite, and with a matching set of leopard print spots running down either side of her face and neck, extending lower past where the fabric of the thin hospital blanket is draped over the young woman’s chest. Dax begins to read the chart, made almost entirely up of question marks, until the girl stirs again. 

She opens her eyes and stares, perplexed, at the tall and sharply dressed agent in front of her. 

“Ezri Dax?” Jadzia says.

“Yes, that’s me. How… How did you-? I gave the doctors a—”

“Fake name, yes, I see that.” She sets down the medical chart.

The young girl seems to pale at this. 

The agent moves to close the blinds on the room and give them some additional privacy, even though Kira and the doctor have already left and the hallway at this end of the unit seems all but deserted.“I also know those aren’t tattoos on your face and neck. And why these monitors don’t work on you.”

“I really doubt you do,” she hears the girl mumble, and for a moment offers only a wicked smile in reply.

“I know—” Jadzia says and turns around, “—because I have them, too.” 

Now that they’re alone and the coast is clear, Jadzia reaches to a spot on her belt loop and deactivates a small camouflage device, and her own spots reappear, along with a Starfleet communicator badge pinned to her chest. At this reveal, Ezri’s eyes go wide. 

“You’re…” she begins, baffled.

“An officer of Starfleet’s Department of Temporal Integrity Commission, that’s right.”

“Actually, I was going to say…  _ dead _ .”

“Ah,” Dax says, pausing awkwardly for a moment, “Right. There’s that.”

“You, how are you…? Ezri shifts her weight and sits up in bed as recollection sets in, “And I have your…” she places a hand over her abdomen, “... don’t I?”

“You do.”

“But how can you not and still be alive?”

“Have Dax?”

Ezri nods. 

“I still do.” 

“How-?”

Jadzia waves a hand and pulls out a small device, beginning to scan the room, “Time travel. Captain Ducan thought I could be of use to the department, so requested my reassignment following my death. But the actual version of me that was pulled from the timeline was from after— you know what, it’s complicated.” 

“I’m beginning to see that.”

“You’re here. I’m here. Let’s leave it at that.”

“Alright…” she still seems a bit unsatisfied by that answer, but chooses to let the matter go, “How did I get here?”

“Still trying to figure that out. Some sort of temporal disruption.”

“Where— no,  _ when  _ am I?”

“The Earth year popularly referred to in this time period as 2019.”

“What? My gosh, I - I - how are we going to get back?”

“You’ll be transported aboard the timeship  _ Relativity.  _ They’ll then escort you back to your correct timeline. But, first, we’ve got some clean up to do. My partner says this hospital has already taken some of your blood. We’ll need to make sure that sample disappears, along with any test results and hospital or police records pertaining to this incident. You know, this all would have gone a lot smoother if you hadn’t decided to act out every Dax’s secret desire to be a bus driver.”

Ezri winces and makes a face as she looks at the floor. “Sorry about that. I was just… so confused. And I didn’t realize I’d gone back in time I thought I was just back on Earth. And then when I realized something more was going on I just panicked and I…” 

“You wanted to see Benjamin.”

Ezri nods.

“Afraid you’re about two hundred and sixty odd years too early. But, plenty of time to shop for the baby shower.”

Jadzia does a final sweep of the room and plugs some things into her device. Suddenly, the medical equipment begins beeping and starts displaying the signals of a perfectly healthy twenty-something year old human girl. 

“There, that should do the trick. Here,” she hands Ezri a small commbadge. This one is different from the one’s she’s used to. Sleeker, thinner, with a few extra lines around the edges and an added flurrish to the Starfleet insignia. “Small, localized transport. That’ll cut right through the temporal interference and beam you aboard the  _ Relativity. _ ”

“And what about you?” Ezri looks up as she fastens the pin to her hospital gown, “Aren’t you coming?”

Jadzia shakes her head. “I’ve a somewhat… permanent assignment here,” Jadzia explains, “Infultrated the F.B.I. a few years back. Work with a partner on ‘solving’ cases that appear as though they could be extraterrestrial in origin.”

“Debunking them, I hope.”

“Not always,” Jadzia smiles sharply, “Just providing… alternative theories.”

Ezri cocks a brow.

“Ghosts. Vampires. Werewolves. Bigfoot. That sort of thing.”

“And… are they?”

Jadzia shrugs, “Usually not. Mostly I’m just covering up tracks from our own agents. And here and there a rogue Starfleet captain who’s gotten their crew trapped in the wrong Earth century.”

“Uh-huh…” Ezri says, watching as Jadzia re-engages her cloaking device and all of her Trill spots, commbadge, and other futuristic gadgets disappear from view. Probably existing in some localized pocket of time in a state of neither existence nor inexistence. If Ezri tried to think about it too much it would make her brain hurt. 

“Does your partner know about all this?”

Jadzia’s eyes become distant and her smile falters briefly. That’s all the answer Ezri needs.

“What are you going to tell her about me?”

“I’ll tell her that when I came in, you were already gone. Probably got up and wandered off. Maybe turned into a swarm of bats and flew out the window, who knows. But at least your machines had started running properly before you’d left. And hopefully they find your blood sample—”

“Which they never will.”

A nod. “It’ll either vanish all together, or will come back the bloodwork of some poor girl, coming down off a bad trip. Loaded up with hallucinogens. Known to cause symptoms easily confused with schizophrenia or multiple personalities.”

“Sounds like you’ve got things all handled.”

“Right as rain.”

“Well,” Ezri gets up out of bed, “In that case, I’ll just… be on my way, I guess. Thanks again. And uh…” she reaches out and puts a hand on Jadzia’s forearm, “Good luck with… everything.” Her eyes go back and linger on the spot in the hallway where Jadzia’s partner had been standing not moments before. Jadzia looks back behind her, surprised, but upon seeing no one turns her sharp gaze back to Ezri’s. The girl’s personnel file had said she was a counselor. It seemed she didn’t miss much. 

“Something tells me,” Ezri says as she hits her new commbadge and the transport beam engages around her, “That it’s not just the interesting  _ work  _ or your  _ dedication _ to Starfleet that keeps you here…”

And Jadzia was left alone in an empty hospital room, looking not too unlike someone who’d just seen a ghost.

**Author's Note:**

> *to clarify: Kira is human in this AU. What killed Jadzia in the canon timeline is not the same as what did so here, but it did still result in Ezri’s getting the Dax symbionte.  
> *details about the Department of Temporal Integrity Commission and the timeship Relativity and its crew are lifted from the Star Trek: Voyager episode “Relativity”


End file.
